I laid my hand quickly on the box, opened it, and struck a light. The room was vaguely illuminated. I saw something white at the far end, against the wall. I put the match to a candle.
The white thing was Margot. She was in her dressing-gown, and was crouched up in an angle of the wall as far away from where I stood as possible. Her blue eyes were wide open, and fixed upon me with an expression of such intense and hideous fear in them that I almost cried out.
“Margot, what is the matter?” I said. “Are you ill?”
She made no reply. Her face terrified me.
“What is it, Margot?” I cried in a loud, almost harsh voice, determined to rouse her from this horrible, unnatural silence. “What are you doing here?”
I moved towards her. I stretched out my hands and seized her. As I did so, a sort of sob burst from her. Her hands were cold and trembling.
“What is it? What has frightened you?” I reiterated.
At last she spoke in a low voice.
“You—you looked so strange, so—so cruel as you came in,” she said.
“Strange! Cruel! But you could not see me. It was dark,” I answered.